


Just, now.

by yeats



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, generalized aura of melancholy, poor miserable rich boys who make bad choices, the decline and fall of the british aristocracy, unspecified chronic illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 05:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7788529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/pseuds/yeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his father's funeral, Regulus receives a guest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just, now.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imochan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan/gifts).



The rain had begun at four am, but Regulus supposed it had been threatening to fall for some time. Surely there’d been clouds building across the sweeping city all week – longer, even. He'd heard it start from the silence of his bedroom on the third floor, the first metallic skitterings against the parapets that gradually echoed out until the individual drops were subsumed in the flood. 

By the time they buried Father at ten o'clock that morning, the ground had softened so much that it seemed only habit kept the entire earth from sinking into itself, Regulus and Mother with it.

 

\---

 

The mourners whispered their way through the house, picking at cheeses and one another. The portraits did the same, murmuring and casting glances at Regulus as he twirled his (third) wine glass and ignored Priscilla Parkinson's simpering sympathy. 

Her hand fluttered against his arm; her face very closely resembled a basset hound’s. "Oh, Regulus, of course I'm sure you've been just _devastated_ by all this!" 

"Quite." He sought to catch his mother's eye, but she remained buried in her handkerchief.

"Was he very sick?" her voice trilled.

Regulus shrugged. "No more than most people. Excuse me," he said, disentangling himself.

Mother looked up at him as he approached, handkerchief pinched between two cadaverous fingers. "Oh, Regulus, it's only you." The other hand fluttered over her throat. "I thought you were that awful brother of yours."

Something petty kicked at the walls of Regulus' stomach; he refused to voice the incipient apology. Of course Sirius hadn't come. "Are your things in order, Mother? I don't think this lot will stay much longer." 

"Kreacher packed while we were out." She dabbed at her eyes. "How is that Parkinson girl?"

"Repugnant." 

She glanced across the room, and nodded. "My darling boy, they all are these days."

 

\---

 

Regulus watched the trunks as they disappeared, each with a _pop_ and a wisp of smoke that stuck in his chest and made him cough. When they’d finished, he glanced at one of the hanging portraits.

"It's just us, now," he said. His voice echoed twice in the atrium.

The man -- lean, with a starched ruffle collar -- sniffed and stalked out of the frame. 

Regulus knew very well what they all thought of him; they gathered in the still life over his bed at night and gossiped. Sleeping, he sifted their harsh voices into dreams of long corridors and faceless men. _'Man of the house now, and isn’t it such a pity? Weak lungs on this one. Weak lungs, and a weak chin. He didn't get that from us. Not his brother, no, not at all. Say what you will -- plenty to be said -- but at least that one was strong. Hardly the way things used to be around here. Hardly the way they used to be anywhere.'_

He awoke late every morning, choked in his sheets, to an empty canvas. 

Only the girl with the parrot, whose portrait hung in the back kitchens, ever spoke to him. He wasn't sure if she was a relative; she didn't seem like one, and her placement in such an unimpressive spot spoke volumes. There was something about her pinched face when he asked who she was, though, that was familiar to him. That looked like someone else who hadn't really belonged here either. 

He often found her wandering through the landscape scene in the library, balancing on a log over the ravine, silhouetted yellow against the darkening sky. The river below thundered in silence; her bird nested in the spindly reaches of the pine at the far right of the canvas, feathers ruffled.

“You’ll fall,” he’d said last night, but she had just looked at him, and lifted one pointed foot. 

"My mother's off to Fréjus," he swallowed. "Wants a holiday."

She wrinkled her nose. "Is that in the cellars? I’ve never been down there."

"Farther." He spun Father’s globe, fingers alighting on strange names –- Zagreb, Paramaribo, Addis Ababa. "Outside."

"Oh," she said, interest perking. "Do they have parrots there?"

"I don’t think so."

The rapids hurtled down and out of sight; the girl stuck one foot out, and then drew it back. Out, and back, out and back, out and.

Regulus let out his breath.

 

\---

 

Four days after they buried Father, Regulus saw the dog. He'd gone out into the garden soon after breakfast, feet skirting the debris from last night's storm and breath racing two steps ahead of him. He brushed off the swing under the gnarled alder tree, and sat down, rocking steadily and shaking newly-fallen leaves out of his hair.

It was sitting next to the roses -- or rather, next to the gap in the flowerbed where the rosebushes had once resided. The gardeners, citing an early frost, had ripped them all out in September; Regulus had been the only one who protested. Allegedly, they were swaddled in towels in the greenhouse, but the doors were locked every time he went to check.

The creature shifted, and Regulus thought for a moment that it was a Grim; its black form stood out against the burnt browns of dead plants. But the dog seemed more interested in flower remnants than in portending doom, and there was an element of comedy in its tail that swished, brushlike, behind it. 

Regulus skidded to a halt on the creaking swing, feet furrowing in the moist ground. "Oi!" He stood, woozily. "How'd you get in here?"

The dog snuffed the earth, rooting about in the fallen leaves.

"Oi!" he said again, With Authority, taking two steps towards the beast. He leaned down, and grabbed a large stick. "Piss off!"

The dog gave a snuffling snort, and raised its head, muzzle muddied. 

"Don't make me," but Regulus didn't know how to finish that sentence anyway. He took another step, but paused as the hulking creature did the same. 

Clenching the stick as if in a challenge, Regulus slashed it in front of his body. "Shoo!"

Their eyes met across the frosted air. Regulus felt the inside of his throat dry out, like the hollowed gourds his mother stuffed dried flowers into at the holidays; he puffed out a breath and watched it pale and dissipate. The dog growled, a sound like flat river stones jostling in Regulus' pocket. Its eyes darkened further into blue; the hair on its back tufted up in a ridge. 

Regulus looked away first. (Typical, he thought, though the voice belonged to his father.) Throwing the stick away, he heard it knock against the fountain, long since dry. 

"You'd better go home," he said to the dog resignedly, and walked back inside.

 

\--

 

The next morning, Regulus awoke cold. The whispers hadn't stopped -- odd, he thought as his eyes blinked open. After the fog lifted, though, he realized it wasn't the portraits, but Kreacher, who'd also pulled off his blankets.

"Master Regulus is needing to get up now." The little monster snapped his fingers, vanishing away the blankets to the laundry. 

"Do I?" Regulus slurred, mouth vile. He'd drunk from his father’s liquor cabinet last night, he remembered, possibly more than he should have. He sat up; a metallic whine reverbated in his ears. Definitely more than he should have. He'd never been able to count his drinks before. At school, Rabastan Lestrange had done it for him, though Rabastan always lied through his teeth when it suited him. Given what normally happened when they drank together, Regulus suspected it suited Rabastan just fine.

"The mistress is been sending a letter that Kreacher is to wake Master Regulus mornings," he said primly. "Master Regulus is lazy-ing about too much." 

From a pocket of his tattered shift, Kreacher pulled out a small glass vial with a silver stopper. In the weak light of his room, its viscous contents looked nearly black.

"I don't suppose that's a Pepper-Up Potion."

"Medicine for Master Regulus, coming from the mistress." Kreacher pushed it at him with his spindly fingers. "Master Regulus must take."

Regulus debated hexing him; his headache, however, suggested that wasn't wise. He yawned. "Did she say if she was coming back soon?"

Kreacher just stared at him, black eyes glittering. 

Right. Regulus unstoppered the vial and tipped it to his lips, downing its contents in three gulps. Despite the colour, it didn't taste like anything at all.

He waved the empty bottle at Kreacher, who snatched it back against his chest. 

"She send me anything else?"

"No." 

"Of course not." Regulus glanced at the picture frame; the canvas stood empty, as usual. He wondered what would happen if he were to cover all the paintings in sheets charmed to hold in their sibilant murmurs. "Tell Pimston to heat a bath.”

Kreacher nodded. Turning to leave, he paused at the door. "Master Regulus, the gardeners is refusing to work."

"What?" Somehow, snarling made him less nauseous.

"They is wanting to speak to you. Sir." He threw out the honorific. Regulus suddenly saw the redness of tears under Kreacher's eyes, and remembered the inhuman howling the night Father died.

Regulus hurled his pillow, knocking the thing over with a cry.

 

\--

 

"I thought I told you to leave." Regulus glared at the dog, hands on his hips. 

Just as the gardeners had said, the creature had made a bed for itself among the dried rushes. Somehow, it had managed to snare a burlap seed bag, as well as some of the hay from the vegetable garden to soften the hard ground.

It thumped its tail against the dead earth in greeting, barking merrily.

Regulus cinched his coat tighter around his waist. The trees quivered in a cold gust of wind, leaves dropping desperately, randomly. No need for gardeners anymore; the only things still alive were the stunted pine trees.

The dog rose. On all fours, it looked to be almost as high as Regulus' waist. Shaking its dark fur, it trotted over, sitting sat on its haunches in front of Regulus, as if expecting something.

"Woof," the dog said, licking its front paw.

"It's better where you were," Regulus said softly. "Trust me." 

The dog cocked his head, whining. 

"I don't have any treats for you," he murmured, "but you can stay out here if you want." 

He turned, and went inside the house, the shutting of the back door echoing.

 

\--

 

The rain began this time at the stroke of midnight; Regulus heard the first drops ping against the study windows as the clock on the wall sighed the hour. 

He looked to the girl with the parrot for advice, but the forest stood empty.

He clutched his snifter to his chest and slithered downstairs. The portraits pretended not to gawk; they stared at him through sleep-hooded eyes.

The back door sighed as it opened; the dog yelped happily from under the dry shelter of the doorway. 

"You'll regret this," Regulus muttered to the dog as he let it slip inside.

 

\--

 

Regulus snared a candelabra from a table in the kitchen; the charm to light it felt good and solid on his tongue. He guided the dog back through shuttered rooms and corridors. Its claws clicked meekly against the wood floors.

Reaching his own room, he paused. "This is where I sleep," he murmured. "I don't suppose you'd like a private room?"

The dog wagged its tail; Regulus opened the door for both of them. Immediately, it bounded onto his bed and looked at him expectantly.

“Oh no,” Regulus sighed, advancing on him. The dog stuck its hind quarters in the air, and made to tear apart Regulus’ pillow. “No!”

With a bark, it jumped down, pillow in its teeth and tail swishing. Regulus lunged after it, but it dove under the bed with its loot, disappearing. 

Kneeling, he peered into the dark space. The dog’s eyes glowed luminescent, moon-like. “Fine.” Regulus stood, wiping off his knees. He crawled into bed, ignoring the paw marks and using his arms to pillow his head. “I hope the puffskeins eat you.” 

From below him came a muffled woof that sounded strangely like laughter.

 

\--

 

Regulus woke up wet. He shivered, rolling over under the suffocating blankets. 

The dog barked once, all too close. Its tongue lathed the side of his face again. Warm spittle caked his cheek.

Regulus opened his right eye. He brought a hand to his face, wiping with the back of his palm. 

"No licking," he admonished the dog, who was sitting, unrepentantly, at the foot of his bed. "Eugh."

Reaching out for the bell pull, he stopped as his head began to spin. "What time is it?" he groaned, mostly to himself, tucking his knees to his chest. He took a rattling breath, lungs gluey. His forehead felt as if it was about to cleave down the middle, his skin stretched too tight. Regulus curled small, head ducking under the large white pillow he found.

The dog followed, wriggling next to him, soft and mossy-smelling. Its velvet wet nose quivered against Regulus' neck. Regulus tried to move away, but it snorted, tail thumping against the bed.

"I'm going to make you get off," Regulus said, but coughed instead. "As soon as I feel better."

The dog sniffed at his neck, licking his collar, shifting as if to move closer. Its body radiated a soft heat; its sides shifted as it breathed. Eyeing Regulus, it gave a low, anxious whine.

"It's all right," Regulus murmured to it, petting the large black head, half asleep again. "It happens all the time." 

He could almost hear the floorboards below him, creaking and popping with his raspy breaths, rotting away, milimetres at a time -- the entire house, folding in on itself like a closing hand. He dug his fingers into the dog's thick fur as the walls wavered, the canopy of his bed undulating in his mind. 

The dog's grey eyes, deep and worried, kept watch on the sleeping boy as the day lengthened. 

 

\--

 

The dream felt as if it had just begun, but Regulus knew that wasn't right; dreams didn't start and end like that. Regulus' dreams always floated in and out of focus, so that he had more than one at once, the zoo and the clenching fear, flickering in and out. 

"Come on," Sirius whispered, tugging him out of bed. Remus untangled his feet from his sheets just as they hit the floor. His toes curled in protest, but he kept up, following Sirius through the long hallways.

Regulus tried to ask where they were going, but forget when they arrived – an alcove in the wall, opening onto a window sill at chest height. Regulus couldn't remember if it was really there. Sirius climbed up, disappearing in the dark nook.

"It's very high," Regulus whispered. 

A hand dropped down.

Regulus thought of the girl with her parasol, the lazy way she walked the edge. He took it, hoisting himself up. 

"Oh," he whispered; there was very little room. 

A breeze hit him from the opened window.

"Have to get the fever down," Sirius whispered, holding him close at the precipice, at the end of the world.

The world gave no sound.

 

\--

 

Kreacher brought Regulus weak tea the next morning, leaving it with a constant refrain of grumbling. 

From under the bed, he could see the dog's tail go rigid. 

"You may have a biscuit," he called out.

Dangling one over the side, Regulus received a thorough bathing of his fingers in return. He forgot to be disgusted as a hail of crumbs sprayed across the floor. 

He turned onto his stomach, facing the dog. "What shall we do today, hmm?" he murmured, rubbing its head. Something clung to him from last night, seeking touching.

The dog's eyes narrowed to contented slits. 

"Woof," it said.

 

\-- 

 

Regulus shuffled over to the loo, feeling the ground pitch queasily.

When he came back out, he saw the dog, wagging its tail. "Oh," he said, sheepishly. "I suppose you might want to go, too?"

Half of him expected the dog to reply.

They snuck out of the house together, away from the scowling faces of the portraits and the sniffling of the elves. No one said a word to them as they went, and no one followed them out -- because unlike Regulus and the dog, they couldn't leave.

But I could, he thought, buoyed by the warm press of the dog's body against his side, the prickles of its fur where it brushed his fingers. 

The garden felt brittle, the air ready to crack. A frost had set in at dawn, hardening all the places the rains had made soft. 

The dog loped out ahead of him, wriggling with joy. It darted to and fro at sharp angles, snapping its jaws in the air, trying to catch the puffs of exhaled condensation. Every few steps, though, it circled back to Regulus, as if to check that he was still following. Its dewy nose pushed against the inside of Regulus's palm, whuffling gently at his pulse. 

"Calm down," Regulus said haughtily, but the dog just snorted, as though it knew better.

Soon enough, it ducked over to the overgrown topiary to do its business. Regulus scratched at the scrubby earth with the toe of his shoe, but he barely made a mark in the frozen ground.

The dog darted behind a misshapen green figure that had once been a dragon. 

Regulus felt his cough beginning to come back. "Come back!" he called out, cupping his hands around his mouth.

He walked out among the dead plants, crushed herbs releasing faint fragrant plumes with each step. 

The dog trotted back with a stick clenched between its teeth. The gray wood glistened with saliva. 

It set the stick before Regulus' feet expectantly. 

"No," he shook his head. "

Nudging the stick forward with his nose, the dog whined. Its sharp eyes gazed at him. Why not, it seemed to say.

Regulus didn't have an answer to that. He tossed the stick as hard as he could, an arcing trajectory against the bleak sky. Then again, when the dog brought it back. Again. 

 

\---

 

The dog led him to a spot in the back wall where several of the stones had rolled loose, the mortar decayed to dust, leaving a gaping hole nearly as tall as he was. Regulus wondered how long it had been here. Certainly his father never would have stood for it. 

The dog padded halfway through, and turned.

"Come back," Regulus repeated. His heart pounded.

The dog leaned back on its hind legs, stretching his forepaws in front of him. He growled, scratched urgently at the fresh, loamy soil uncovered between the stones. Encouraging me, Regulus thought.

"I know what you want, but I can't." The house loomed behind him, its jagged shadow somehow far bigger than its actual size. It stretched even all the way back here. There wasn't a place in the world, Regulus knew, where it couldn't reach. 

"Please stay?" 

The dog whined again. It gave a low bark, wagging its tail, eyes twinkling.

"I can't come with you," he enunciated, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

Regulus remembered pieces of his dream –- Sirius, the night air, the end of the world –- as he walked the long path back inside.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a good ten years ago for [imochan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/imochan/pseuds/imochan), back when no one but us cared about poor sad regulus black. bringing it back as a slightly-early birthday gift. i still think we loved him best.


End file.
